


In the Beginning was the Word

by Bevan



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-19
Updated: 2016-08-19
Packaged: 2018-08-09 17:04:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7810120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bevan/pseuds/Bevan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU where words are magic, and Lucius is the guiding light his name suggests.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Beginning was the Word

**Author's Note:**

> Part 1 of probably many parts. In due time.

I am here to tell you that one must always be careful what one says. One word can change everything. I know.

In the beginning, there was the Word. Then there was a Phrase. Later a Paragraph. Then a Novel. Finally, the whole, colossal cacophony of chaos that includes us. And apparently, we inhabit the Fourth Book of a series. 

Those with the power, whom we call the Talented, can change and manipulate that Word. Most unfortunately, one of the most Talented of the last millennia is also an incorrigible sociopath. He and my grandfather went to law school together. And thus began a long career of reshaping reality into his own twisted image, a career so many would like to see cut short. One can always dream, as long as one dreams not too loudly. He, the one people call the Primus, or the WordBreaker, can hear and see one's thoughts better than the one thinking them. My advantage is that my Veela ancestors gifted me with a legacy of bright, flitting thought patterns that the Primus finds it difficult to tolerate. He is hardly the first to call us bird brains. But as we all know, the birds are among the brightest minds to spring from the swirl of words that make up our reality. 

I have just come from the Veela enclave where my mother grew up. The Veela long ago began moving their cities out of our cluttered reality and into a haven that is like another layer of our world. It has the advantage that one can't find or enter through the veils without express invitation or a substantial amount of Veela heritage. And despite the fact that I am more than half Veela, my nature is more human wizard than not. So it took me some time to master the art of slipping through. My young friend Severus, who looks not at all Veela, is much better at it than I, and adept at many a Veela skill that I cannot claim. For one thing, he can speak with Dreamers. Like one of the Divines.

My voyage into my mother's homeland showed me one thing clearly: the Dreamers were not sleeping easy these days. Apparently, the Primus' efforts to change the nature of the Spoken World were actually having an effect. A mostly negative one. 

The Veela Divines said that the Dreamers were in turmoil. The fabrics of the world's four incarnations were tearing and reshaping themselves, and the barriers between the four worlds were becoming malleable. Some Dreamers had apparently been caught within the manifold changes and been torn apart along with the pathways between the worlds. Many of the others were deeply afraid and no longer left their spheres. 

No one knew the purpose of these changes. Was it to merge the four incarnations? Destroy all but the Primus' chosen reality? Or were the problems merely an unintended effect of his powerful but misguided experimentation with the energies of the Spoken Word?

Do not dismiss the idea. Many of the Primus' effects, both bad and occasionally good, had been unintended. In perverting the old rituals and incantations in novel and increasingly powerful ways, he had released some odd energies and perhaps intelligences that no one remembered seeing before. At least not in this incarnation.

All of us in all of the four worlds were perhaps fortunate that the Primus was born into this incarnation and not a previous one. In its fourth iteration, the world and all its events moved more slowly. For example, children did not graduate the Training Ground or reach the age of emancipation until 30 years of age. We did not even reach sexual maturity until age 18. In the other three worlds, the Dreamers said maturation and everything else moved almost twice as fast. I was now 82, and barely into middle age as yet.

Our technological age had begun more than eight centuries ago, but we had not achieved the levels of pollution and daily danger of destruction that the previous worlds had reportedly achieved in far fewer centuries. At present, our worst danger was the idiotic scheming of the Primus and his affiliates. And OK, I must number myself as one of his affiliates. His very poster boy in fact. But as you know by now, I am here in his circle under duress. 

Our world had developed a viable space program more than two centuries ago, but no one had ever gone into space. Who would? Why would anyone want to go out there into the dark unknown? And given what humanity had done with all previous incarnations of the world and might be in the process of doing to this one, I didn't believe that we should even be allowed off the planet.

The Divines said that a different Word of Power had been used in each of the world's incarnations to set everything in motion. I guessed that the Makers were going to keep trying with different Words and different Incarnations until they got things right. By the look of things, that could be a great many incarnations from now. How can I translate the deep sigh of resignation that thought prompted in me onto this paper?

My young friend Severus - OK, not that young anymore; nearly my age, was one of the greatest Masters of the Spoken Word of our era. A fact he kept well hidden for his own safety. But even as a young boy under my care when we were at the Training Ground together, he showed an uncanny mastery. He could venture into the dark forest around the Ground without fear. All the forest denizens deferred to his Word. The staff of the Ground were not nearly so deferential....

****

"Aye, your lad is often in the Deep Forest," Hagrid was telling me on one of visits back after graduation to check on Sevy's progress. "In his first years, I used to bring him back when I saw 'im in there. I thought that surely it must be a mistake that 'e was there in the dark forest at all. But 'e always seemed to resent it mightily when I'd take him outta the Deep. I don't interfere these days. I seen him and he gets along fine with most o' the critters in 'ere. And the ticks are afraid o' him for some reason. So I figure 'e's safe. In any case, he's more powerful with the Spoken power than I am now, so I couldn't stop him goin' where he would anyhow."

Ticks. What a small, innocuous name for such a deadly creature. They averaged about 10 feet high, or round: however you wanted to look at it. They were bigger than most cars. They could capture a full-grown man, lock him up in their many legs, and suck him dry in less than 5 minutes. A tick could go for over a decade without a single meal, but you didn't want to cross its path when it was time to feast.

And the Deep Forest was full of giant mosquitoes too. Compared to the ticks, they weren't as frightening. Only a foot across maybe with wings fully spread. They wouldn't kill you, unless a whole bunch of them lit on you at once. Their primary danger was in the diseases they carried. The ticks were big disease carriers too, but their victims rarely survived to get sick later. But every year, a few dozen people died of the mosquito-borne diseases. 

Such insects seemed to grow bigger the farther north one ventured in the world, and we were at the very top of the world on the Nordenhand Training Ground. In Tyrrhenio, far to the south, the ticks and mosquitoes both were less than an inch across.

Almost anyone could fend off our mosquitoes though. Even for those with absolutely no Talent for spoken power, there were man-made repellents one could use. And some people just didn't attract them. They apparently had no useful nutrients in their blood.

The giant ticks were another matter. They had their own magic, and one had to be fairly powerful to ward one away. Almost no children had the power. And even less than half of Trained adults could do it. Mostly people just had to run for their lives. Or avoid the Deep. Which I did. I have never, in fact, been into the Deep Forest to this day. It's not that I'm a coward. I just don't have the level of spoken power necessary to be safe there. And I've no need to venture there either. But few people ever enter the Deep. There's just too much danger of death, unless you're one of the most powerful of mages. 

Oh, and I didn’t even mention the vampires that were said to take shelter in the Deep. Yes, the forest was just full of bloodsuckers of all types. I suspected the government tax office must have its headquarters in there somewhere. 

The tax offal; oops, sorry, my bad - I meant "officials," like the vampires, had nothing to fear in the forest. Neither group was quite human, but they carried an extraordinary amount of power, and any blood they had must surely be borrowed from someone else.


End file.
